Where's France Córdova?
New NSF director jumps into the frying pan served up by Congress as it reviews agency programs.
Don't let new boundaries cut off UK science
Don't let new boundaries cut off UK science
Many scientists in the UK could soon find themselves isolated from their colleagues in Europe and Scotland. That must not happen.
How to build a bad research center
How to build a bad research center
Eight commandments on how to build a bad research center.
I'm a teenage lobotomy
A large fraction of academic scientists are obsessed with the issue of 'when will I have done enough to complete my PhD?'
Re-Evaluating the College Rankings Game
Although the rating of colleges and universities around the world has been heavily criticized by educators and politicians alike, the academic rankings business is big, and booming.
Want to be a PI? What are the odds?
Algorithm based on publications finds that first-author articles in leading journals matter most.
Internationale Mobilität der WissenschaftlerInnen in Deutschland im europäischen Vergleich
Internationale Mobilität der WissenschaftlerInnen in Deutschland im europäischen Vergleich
Studie zur Mobilität der Wissenschafter.
The number of scholarly documents on the public web
The lower bound number of scholarly documents, published in English, available on the web is roughly 114 million.
Evaluation des Forschungskredits der Universität Zürich
Studie der Sozialforschungsstelle der Universtität Zürich.
When did it stop being worthy?
When did it stop being worthy?
Two themes sound repeatedly among those who would taper the flow of money: social science research isn't as economically valuable or as "high quality" as technological or medical research, and social science research can't be justified in austere times.
Hate the peer-review process? Einstein did too
Most academic papers today are published only after some academic peers have had a chance to review the merits and limitations of the work. This seems like a good idea, but there is a growing movement that wants to retort as Albert Einstein did to such a review process.
Studyforrest.org
An open invitation to anyone and everyone to participate in a decentralized effort to explore the opportunities of open science in neuroimaging.
The damaging bureaucracy of academic peer preview
Academic funding agencies should support research in unfashionable fields; a letter to David Cameron.
New efforts to maximize fairness in NIH peer-review
The NIH is working on multiple fronts to get to the bottom of unexplained racial disparities in R01 grant funding and to maximize fairness in NIH peer review.
NIH seeks $4.5 billion to try to crack the code of how brains function
A final version of NIH document presents an estimate of the money needed.
Reproducible research is still a challenge
rOpenSci was awarded $300k from the Sloan Foundation to develop tools that are at least as easy to use before we can expect project reproducibility to become mainstream.
Time to discard the metric that decides how science is rated
Scientists need ways to evaluate themselves and their colleagues. These evaluations are necessary for better everyday management: hiring, promotions, awarding grants and so on. One evaluation metric has dominated these decisions, and that is doing more harm than good.
Working across research silos is harder than it looks
One of the loudest buzzwords in current science politics is interdisciplinarity. Government extols its virtues. Research councils clamour about its value. Academics parade their credentials.
Science in the next 50 years: U.S. views of technology and the future
Report based on a U.S. survey conducted by Pew Research Center with Smithsonian magazine and featured in a special issue of the magazine on science and science fiction.
South America by the numbers
The expanding economies of South America have led to a significant rise in scientific output over the past two decades, and research spending has increased in most countries. But given the region's share of the world's population and GDP, publication rates still fall short of what would be expected.
How to make government data sites better
Accessing government data from the source is frustrating. If you've done it, or at least tried to, you know the pain that is oddly formatted files, search that doesn't work, and annotation that tells you nothing about the data in front of you.
Elsevier, Springer und Thieme verklagen ETH-Bibliothek und bekommen Recht
Schon seit 2012 weiss man, dass von Elsevier, Springer und Thieme Klage gegen den Dokumentlieferdienst der ETH-Bibliothek eingereicht wurde. Wie es aber weiterging war aber weitgehend unklar. Am 7. April 2014 fand am Handelsgericht des Kanton Zürich die Gerichtsverhandlung statt.
EuroScientist webzine
Selection of a series of themes from the Euroscience Open Forum (ESOF) 2014.
How much did your university pay for your journals?
A new study shows universities pay more or less for academic journal bundles than would be expected based simply on size or number of Ph.D.s granted.
The inside track
Members of the US National Academy of Sciences have long enjoyed a privileged path to publication in PNAS. Meet the scientists who use it most heavily.
Eyeing EU research money despite referendum
For the EU commission, there is no legal way to restart science funding unless Switzerland extends freedom of movement to Croatia.
Asia university rankings update
Japan is still the number one nation but the balance of power is shifting as Beijing increases research funding
Let the light shine in
Scientists make much of the fact that their work is scrutinised anonymously by some of their peers before it is published. This "peer review" is supposed to spot mistakes and thus keep the whole process honest.
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